


Your Heart Just Couldn't Wait

by Pookaseraph



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Background Het, Drunk Sex, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:12:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pookaseraph/pseuds/Pookaseraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and his BFF Tony Stark have the life - they're co-valedictorians at the most prestigious high school in the city, they have their own condo in Manhattan, and they get to go to all the awesome parties. Charles just wished he understood relationships and sex as well as Tony does. His theoretical bisexuality starts to feel a lot less theoretical when he and Tony end up in Professor Lehnsherr's Physics III course at Columbia University, but Charles' decision to take their relationship further leaves both student and professor with more than they bargained for.</p><p>Features an enthusiastically-consenting!16-year-old!Charles</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Heart Just Couldn't Wait

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [我心似箭](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3584364) by [Lisimo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisimo/pseuds/Lisimo)



> This fic, as usual, owes a debt to Regann. It also owes a debt to brilligspoons and pocky_slash (et al.?) and the brilliant Daycare 'verse which got me really stuck on the idea of Charles and Tony being BFFs. Um... fluffy-angst ensued.

Charles Xavier wasn't a jealous kid by nature, and truth be told he could understand how people might be a little envious of _him_ ; he and his best friend Tony Stark shared a two bedroom condo in Manhattan (mostly so they could go to Hunter HS even though their parents didn't technically live in the city), they both had pretty famous and brilliant dads who did engineering and craziness, sometimes people took pictures of them went they went out shopping (weird), and in general they had what any sixteen year old would have considered 'the life'. That didn't mean that Charles couldn't be just a little jealous of how effortlessly Tony seemed to have figured out the whole 'sex thing'. It wasn't that Charles didn't want to, it just seemed way more complicated than Tony made it seem.

Mostly he had decided that Tony fell for giggles and cute and Charles needed something a little more cerebral... and cute.

"What was wrong with Tiffany? I mean, really, Charles. She had her hand down your pants!" The two of them were currently sitting in their living room, kicking back with a soda while working on the pre-reading for their physics classes they were taking over at Columbia University after school hours.

"She thought genetics was 'like that scientology thing'," he shot back.

"Hand. Down your pants." Tony clearly thought that was the end of the discussion. "If you're not actually bi you can tell me, I'm sure I can find a guy for you, maybe even one who knows that derivation isn't something you do in a car."

"At the moment the orientation is purely theoretical." He was pretty sure you had to actually _do_ something to be really certain.

"Maybe it would help if you didn't spent most of the chat up time talking about mutant eyeballs." And that was yet another thing that he was completely jealous of Tony for: somehow his best friend managed to be giving him a complete run for his money for class valedictorian (4.0s for each of them, seniors, even though they were both sixteen) and also be really cool and suave and... stuff.

"Sorry I'm not executing 'sexy misdemeanors' as well as you had hoped." He sighed and slumped down in his chair.

"Hey..." Tony frowned, and he could see the awkwardness there that Tony carried whenever they were talking about anything other than sex, school, and occasionally their families. It wasn't that the teen was incapable of talking about feelings but for all they were taking college classes and living on their own they were still - at their core - teenage boys. "It's not a big deal if you don't want to, there's nothing wrong with... yaknow, wanting something more... It's ok if you're Nikki and I'm Paris."

Charles hid his face in his hands, trying to think of how he was even supposed to respond to that. "I'll disregard that you just compared us to the Hiltons, but... thanks." In his own emotionally constipated way Tony was right. It wasn't that he thought he needed to stop being a virgin, or he needed to stay a virgin, maybe he just wanted more than the hookups that Tony seemed to enjoy so much. "I'll be Nikki."

"That's totally reasonable, we'll find you someone brilliant and sexy and totally into the sorta jailbaitish thing you have going on."

He could deal with that.

The truth was his 'purely theoretically' sexual orientation was feeling a lot less theoretical when he and Tony walked in to Physics III the next Monday afternoon after high school and the professor was... smoking hot. Erik Lehnsherr, Erik Lehnsherr was smoking hot; he was tall and lean with dark hair and brilliant blue-green eyes and it just felt... magnetic - it was lust at first sight, and he had absolutely never felt anything even close to what he felt in that moment. It was a lot like thinking that he wanted to kiss him and have him read physics journals to him and then make out and talk quantum mechanics. And maybe he spent just a littttle more time listening to the way he growled through the ground rules of his course and how hard the course was and how most of them were going to fail and he was pretty sure Tony might have noticed from where they were perched next to each other in the third row and he was _so_ not ready to discuss that right now.

"Danger-sexual," Tony had called it as soon as they were out of class and loitering at a coffee shop near campus. "You spend the whole summer ignoring my - very altruistic if I do say so myself - throwing of various young men and women at you, not finding _any_ them suitable, and then you get totally hard for someone who wouldn't look out of place in a maximum security prison."

Charles wasn't paying attention, he was too busy googling. "PhD, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University. He's probably brilliant..."

"Don't worry, Charles, you saw him first." Tony sounded sarcastic, and yet Charles couldn't quite help the fact that made him feel a good deal better. If Tony set his mind to it, he could seduce damn near anyone and Charles wouldn't have stood a chance.

He had to suppress something that felt a lot like a giggle. Charles' head was already rattling off every reason why this was a bad idea: Professor Lehnsherr was much older than him, growly, probably straight, his _professor_ but none of that mattered to the way his heart was racing and his mind refused to focus on anything other than how soon they would be back in class.

Tony let him focus on his tea and his newfound discovery of libido for at least a half hour before dragging him back off of campus and to their apartment. Finally away from campus, Charles could actually focus on homework.

* * *

It was always something of a disappointment when Erik started to suspect a student - or in this case two students - of cheating. The truth was that Tony Stark and Charles Xavier's homework was frequently near-identical, he suspected that much could be explained away by the pair doing their homework together. However, when the first test of the semester, four weeks in, had their tests come back with Stark scoring a perfect 100% and Xavier making only two very minor mistakes and scoring a 97% he was beginning to think that the pair was cheating. It wasn't just that he was surprised by the score, but the next highest test score was in the 70s and at least 10% of the material hadn't even been covered yet in the class. Simply put, it was unfair to the other students to grade with Stark as the curve setter - even if he didn't care much for the psychological health of random undergraduates. The whole point of a course like Physics III was to wash out the undergrads who were unsuited to the major.

He had left the two of their tests out of the pile of tests scattered about on the end table and kept the wonder twin's papers for himself so it wasn't unexpected when the pair came up to his desk to get their tests.

"Professor?" He thought that might have been Xavier. If he had been forced to guess, he would have thought that Stark was the ring leader, he was the taller one, more classically handsome, and he paid less attention in lectures. Xavier was far more sweet and mousey, although Erik knew appearances could be deceiving. "Our tests weren't in the pile. Is there a problem?"

Guilty conscience, maybe? "I would like to speak to both of you about your performance on the test."

Erik watched the two of them exchange a look, neither one of them betrayed much by way of nerves. Stark shrugged, Xavier tilted his head and shrugged as well. "Here?" Stark asked.

"My office." He continued to watch the two of them, but Stark looked completely casual, at ease and unconcerned. Xavier looked slightly more concerned, but that could have been anything, especially given Stark's demeanor. Xavier worried his lip, hand rooting through his bag, pulled out a phone and checked his email - or something - as the three of them headed over to Erik's office. "I would like to speak with the two of you separately."

The two of them put out their hands and he realized they were going to play _rock-paper-scissors_ to determine who went first, but they seemed to be using extra gestures that Erik had never seen before. He rolled his eyes, looking away from them, but apparently Xavier had either won, or lost, and was thus going second.

It took him little time to determine that Stark was just... legitimately that brilliant. It was shocking considering the man's hair and demeanor otherwise but a few problems worked out in front of the board proved exactly that. It still left the question of Xavier but... it seemed unlikely that his theory that Stark had bullied Xavier into helping him would pan out.

As Stark left, the pair traded a few words and Xavier's face brightened. "See ya at home." And then the man left.

"Xavier, if you would please?" He gestured to the inside of his office and the kid walked in, taking in the room before he sat carefully in one of the seats and gave him a bright smile.

"I prefer Charles..." The boy, Xavier - Charles, said and gave him a bright grin. "Tony said you thought we might have cheated." Almost no preamble. "I'm prepared to demonstrate my abilities in physics to your satisfaction."

Erik handed him the paper - a second test, similar questions as far as content but different both from the test itself and the test he'd given the other boy. Charles fished out a pen and a book - a slim differential calculus text - and used it as a desk.

"We must have blown the curve," Charles gave him another smile and Erik reminded himself not to be charmed just because the more conspicuously charming young man _hadn't_ tried to charm him.

"Actually, your friend Tony blew the curve, you will have to be satisfied with a 97."

He expected Charles' smile to face, even slightly, but it didn't and he set to work on the problems. "Then I will do my best to prove I am approximately three percent less incredibly than Tony."

Erik couldn't help it, he grinned, but hid it well enough behind his hand as he sat at the desk. He kept his eye on Charles - to make certain he wasn't cheating - and had to admit he was a good bit of fun to watch. Unlike Stark's all-business approach when he was working the problems, Charles' face went through all sorts of emotions, mostly humor and amusement. "You and Stark?" He had to admit at least a bit of curiosity.

"Tony and I are roommates - he can be a bit of a pain when he wants to throw a party but he actually understands the 'work hard' part of 'work hard and play hard'." Charles continued to scribble, apparently not distracted by conversation while engaged in physics problems.

"You seem a bit more on the 'work hard, work hard' end of the continuum."

Charles actually _frowned_ , despite the fact that Erik thought that was something of a compliment. "I guess my idea of a good time is more along the lines of playing chess and discussing a good book than Tony's."

"Do you also knit and play bridge?" He couldn't help himself, his sense of humor had always been a bit biting and wry, perhaps he should have gone a bit easier--

"I _am_ more than capable of a good round of bridge, but it's not my preference." Charles finished his last problem and handed it over to Erik.

Erik took it and pulled out a pencil to carefully mark it and look at the work. It was barely necessary, Charles had gotten them all correct. "Perfection - even the one you made a mistake on during the exam."

"The problem was in the math, not the theory," Charles answered, dismissive, but he had a slight flush about his cheeks.

Erik thought there was nothing more delightful than a student who actually took pride in their accomplishments and intelligence. He had far less respect for boys like Tony who hid their intelligence behind a vapid exterior. "Well, it seems I was mistaken, Charles." He handed over the test and Charles flipped through it, penciling in corrections to the two problems he'd made mistakes on. "Your fellow students will not find themselves fond of you and Stark."

"What else is new," Charles sighed. "Well... if there's nothing else, Professor?"

Charles looked torn between going and-- what? Staying? It took him only a moment but Erik realized they had been in the middle of something that was suspiciously like a conversation. He didn't _converse_ with undergraduates, they usually needed at least the bachelor's before they were worth his time, but Charles was... thoughtful. "What are you majoring in, Charles?"

"Oh - well - technically undeclared, but biophysics and genetics."

Erik blinked. "Impressive." He really shouldn't... "Would you accept a coffee in apology for the accusation of cheating?"

If anything, Charles' grin got even more brilliant. "Absolutely not, but I would accept an earl grey."

"Rather stereotypical, wouldn't you say?" The kid's British accent was quite pronounced and it seemed the only way he might have gotten more euro-geek stereotypical would have been to ask for 'tea, earl grey, hot'.

"There is nothing wrong with enjoying a simple pleasure, however stereotypical." Charles stood, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "I picked up a bit of a taste for it when I was a kid - dad worked on these crazy projects over in England and it's either that or nothing."

And somehow the conversation continued, through physics journals, Erik's time working on his doctorate, Charles love of track and years growing up in England, a game of chess at a coffee shop a few blocks off campus, and by the time it was almost seven and Charles was trying to hide his conspicuously growling stomach Erik realized they had been talking for almost three hours and he really would have rather they didn't stop.

* * *

"Look what the cat dragged in," Tony said when Charles came home after eight with takeout chinese in one hand and his bag slung over his other shoulder. "What the hell took so long? I was imagining situations where you bombed just to have the opportunity to look at him with those baby blues all 'please, Professor Lehnsherr, I'll do _anything_ '."

Charles pelted Tony with a fortune cookie. "You watch too much porn."

"Well if it didn't turn into some awesome version of 'Hot Teen Co-Eds Gone Wild' what the hell were you doing for four hours?"

He ducked into the kitchen to hide his blush and got Tony some egg rolls and sauce and then served up a proper dinner for himself. Charles was trying his absolute hardest not to think about the fact that the last four hours - minus the earlier accusation of cheating - had been the closest thing to a proper date he'd had... maybe ever. Especially if you didn't count those moments when you went to a movie with seven other friends and then had to really awkwardly put your arm around the girl and hope she didn't think you were really weird.

"We were... talking."

"Is that a dirty euphemism? This story is much better if that's a dirty euphemism."

Charles almost considered not bringing in the egg rolls, but did, sitting down on the couch next to Tony. "Then you'll have to live with the story being boring, because that was really it. We talked about... stuff, physics journals, school, class - did you know he got blackmailed into teaching Phys3? He's supposed to just be teaching engineering but since he's the new kid they twisted his arm." Charles kicked his feet up, thinking of how much he'd enjoyed that, just hearing silly things about college politics and things. "He bought me tea and we played chess."

"Oh. My. God. YOU WENT ON A DATE!" Tony looked at him, horrified and Charles fought down the urge to pout in return. "You legitimately went on some sort of date-shaped outing with our physics professor. You didn't call him professor, did you, because that is allll sorts of kinky that I completely approve of but... really?"

"Actually, he invited me to call him Erik." And Charles completely approved of _that_. The whole thing had made it seem as though Erik was open to another 'date-shaped outing' as Tony had called it, and that meant... well Charles didn't want to reflect on what that might think too hard at the moment. He knew he found Erik frightfully attractive, an assessment that had only been reenforced by seeing how loose and friendly Erik could be when he wasn't concentrating on trying to be intimidating. "He really is brilliant..."

Tony was silent for several long moments, and for a second Charles feared... something. He didn't know, but the idea that Tony might not approve had him more nervous than he was comfortable with. As much as he was ridiculous and flighty and teased Charles mercilessly, Tony was the closest person Charles had to a brother and his opinion meant the world to Charles.

"I'm not sure how I feel about the guy actually being into that jailbait thing you have going," Tony finally admitted. "He's got to be at least thirty."

Charles glowered, it wasn't his fault he looked sixteen going on twelve. "It's just baby fat," he shot back. It was another topic of some envy on Charles' part when it came to Tony. Tony had already started to be angular and adult looking in a way that Charles wasn't sure he would ever manage, even when he was thirty had five PhDs. "He wasn't inappropriate, we didn't even touch."

He wanted that absolutely clear, because as much as Tony might think it was a date, it really wasn't. He knew it wasn't going to happen, not really. Guys who looked like Erik, who were brilliant and bitingly sarcastic and sexy with muscles in all the right place didn't date baby-faced geeks who looked like Charles.

"It's not a date, Tony, and even if it happens again it will not be a date, and even if it were a date it certainly would not happen while I am still his student."

Charles' words seemed to make Tony feel a little easier and the two of them settled into a more companionable silence. He could still sense Tony was ill at ease, but Charles was certain that Erik meant nothing by it. Just because Charles might have liked their evening together to have been a date didn't mean that it was.

Class the next time involved Erik singling Tony and Charles out - not by name - and making it clear that there would be very little curving of the tests due to some superior performance on the part of some of their classmates, so they had best get used to failure. Tony didn't slump in his chair, but Charles had to resist the urge and an elbow from Tony kept him sitting straight up.

Due to some sort of family thing on Tony's part, Wednesdays suddenly became the day Tony bailed from class as soon as it was over and Charles lingered. At first he'd just used the excuse of looking over his homework - perfect marks - and he thought he might have come off a little pathetic, but then Erik had tucked his papers away and shouldered his own bag. "Something of interest, Charles?"

Was... was Erik flirting with him? For a moment he was breathless, worrying his lip between his teeth. No, obviously not, he was just asking him if there was a reason he was lingering after class, nothing untoward. "I suppose I could say I was fascinated by the lecture, but I could just admit that I wanted to return the favor of coffee."

Erik's movements hitched slightly, just slightly, and his fingers dug just barely into the edge of his bag. Charles could see thoughts of some shape flitting through Erik's eyes, and Charles held his own breath. "The least you could do is have an article to discuss." Last week he might have been put off by Erik's tone, but he could hear the tease there.

"Any suggestions, Professor?"

Wordless, Erik fished into his bag and pulled out a journal, there was a sticky note pressed towards the middle and Charles tilted the journal to see where Erik had messily scrawled his name. His heard skipped a beat as he thumbed open the journal and saw it was concerning a case study in gene therapy made possible by a collaboration of doctors and biophysicists. Charles ran his fingers over the article for a moment, shocked by the thought that Erik had put into it - he had even taken it to class and...

"Thanks." He grinned up at Erik. "Well... next time, then?" He would have liked to spend more time with Erik but this was well enough, really. As it was his heart was pounding and he was feeling light-headed.

He thought that was the end of it, but then he realized that Erik apparently had accepted his offer of coffee without actually telling him - and this time the two of them ended up at the coffee shop and he ended up telling Erik a particularly boring tale of how he desperately wanted to go to Oxford after his undergraduate and become a professor. Erik seemed to enjoy the conversation, regardless, and their game of chess turned into a debate over politics that left Charles feeling a little naive, but he couldn't bring himself to mind, especially since Erik was smiling throughout.

* * *

Erik was doomed, completely. In a few weeks, his dreams had gone from simple and uncomplicated to involving soft brown hair, blinding blue eyes, cherry red lips, and coy British accents. More specifically, they involved the coy British accent talking him into bed, blue eyes sweeping over him and then the cherry red lips doing pleasant things down his body while Erik's fingers threaded through the soft brown hair. If it was _just_ the sex, he might have been able to handle it, but instead it seemed to be tied into the fact that Charles was brilliant, a sharp conversationalist, and his youthful naivety was well balanced by youthful enthusiasm.

Wednesday afternoons soon became something of a brilliant beacon in the middle of the week, knowing that Charles would be there, mind full to bursting with ideas and thoughts and opinions on whatever Erik had suggested he read for that week. The way Charles caressed the pages of whatever new journals Erik handed over had slowly turned his mind to putty; the way Charles grinned and laughed when Erik said something he completely disagreed with was intoxicating instead of frustrating; the way Charles worried his lip when he was nervous or coy or just considering what to say next made him want to rub his finger against his lip and kiss the man senseless.

It was much harder to lust after someone you also respected, and that was exactly where Erik was finding himself as they slowly crept passed mid-semester and Charles - and Tony - maintained their near-perfect averages.

As the weeks wore on, he became less and less certain that it was only a hopeful imagining that Charles returned Erik's feelings. Glances through eyelashes - previously just shy had slowly turned more heated; the awkward moment where they drew their evenings to a close began to linger, Charles looking conflicted; the brief touch of fingers over a shoulder became more drawn out.

Erik thought it highly unlikely - and highly unnecessary - that Charles was doing it for the grade, so the possibilities that were held by the end of the semester were suddenly feeling far more real. Two discrete but equally terrifying possibilities presented themselves: Charles might come on to him properly or Charles might never swing by his office again, face excited and flushed and eyes dancing as he said his name like it was a prayer.

Naturally if the former happened he should refuse, but he knew himself too well think he would have that much control. The latter made him even more terrified.

He thought it was possible that he was in love. Certainly he'd thought that before and had been mistaken, but... more and more the early morning fog where tempting dreams met with the cold crush of reality, he found himself reaching over to the empty side of the bed and wondering why Charles wasn't there with him.

Doomed. Completely.

Erik was positive Tony knew. The boy was Charles' best friend, and Erik had more and more started to notice the way Tony watched Erik, and the way his look changed as the semester went on. Either the man was hopelessly in love with Charles and not man enough to admit it, or he was simply worried about the very understandable possibility that Erik would break his friend's heart.

Classes ended.

Reading week passed without a single sign of Charles.

Charles and Tony left the final (early) with only a smile in Erik's direction.

Final grades were due on the 23rd at noon, and he had barely five minutes to feel very sorry for himself.

"Are you going anywhere for holidays?" Charles asked from the open door of his office, leaning his head against the doorframe.

"Hadn't planned on it."

That blindingly bright grin answered him a moment later. "Tony went home... Long Island."

"And you, Charles?"

"Sister's at boarding school... Step-Brother isn't, so... I'll pass."

Erik already knew about Charles' little family drama, and he wouldn't have wished a month at home without his sister on the boy. Charles had never said it outright, but Erik had the distinct impression that the abuse that Charles talked around sometimes didn't end with harsh words. "Plans, then?"

"I was... hoping to spend the holidays with my boyfriend."

Something that felt distinctly like a knife made of ice water jabbed into his stomach and then took a second shot at his heart that Erik was similarly unable to avoid. He wasn't certain how life had been so unfair as to have Charles make it abundantly clear than he was, in fact, gay, but taken. Not really able to stop himself, even though he hardly needed the weight on his mind. "Boyfriend?"

"Well..." Charles was blushing, all the way from the tips of his hair down to his throat that made Erik want to strangle whatever boy could bring that blush across Charles' face. "I haven't exactly asked him yet... to be my boyfriend, I mean."

Erik was completely lost, and he imagined it must have showed on his face in slack-jawed confusion, until suddenly the bashful look in Charles' face, the hopeful glint in his eyes, and the nervous tone that was slowly creeping into his voice brought a moment of clarity.

"Unless... well unless I've really read this all wrong, in which case I'm going to go and..." He took a deep breath and hitched his finger over his shoulders, eyes somehow happy and tearful all at once and Erik thought he wasn't sure how his heart could go from sunk to bursting in such a short period of time.

"Charles..." The boy's face sunk. "Please, come in, shut the door and... sit down."

Charles managed the first three, and then when he turned around, awkwardly trying to decide where to sit, glancing at the desk, the chairs, and then Erik scooted his chair out and put his hand out for Charles. After only a moment's hesitation, Charles locked the door, walked over to him, legs wobbling between seductive and nervous, before finally sitting down on Erik's lap - which was actually something of a shock to him - and then Charles brushed his fingers against Erik's cheek.

"Boyfriend?" Erik smiled, arm wrapping around Charles' waist. He could feel his own heart racing, beyond fast, his other hand going to Charles' face, fingers running softly over his face there. Without his mind even realizing what he was doing, his fingers ghosted down and brushed against the lips that had been taunting him for the past weeks.

"Significant other?" Charles mumbled against his fingers, his lips pursing to leave an almost kiss against the tip of his thumb.

Erik didn't think it mattered, and he wasn't going to debate it when he had a tempting _former_ student sitting on his lap, face inches from his own, and he pulled Charles closer, the man's lips pressing against his, tentative for only a breath before both of his arms were wrapped tight around his neck and the two of them crushed together. Charles kissed the same way he did everything, enthusiastic and brilliant and completely irresistible to Erik, and he found himself tilting his head instantly to bring them even closer together, Charles' tongue, nervous and inquisitive, pressing against his mouth, and then they were even closer, tongues sliding together. Charles' mouth was sweet and hot and Erik let him control the kiss while Erik's hands raked over his back, touching every previously forbidden inch of skin.

When the two of them broke apart, Charles' eyes looked dazed and bright, and Erik had to bite down on his own tongue from saying something ridiculous - something that would have sounded suspiciously like 'I love you'.

"Come over for the holidays," Charles said, bold enough for the both of them. "Eat Christmas Turkey and ... Hanukkah ... pancakes," he stumbled and Erik kissed him, just a touch against his lips. "Curl up with me and just..." He stumbled again, and Erik waited - as patient as he could be - for Charles to tell him exactly what he expected. "I would like to make up for all of those Wednesdays I wanted to end with us wrapped up against each other and kissing."

"There is nothing in the world I would like more, Charles."

* * *

Charles knew that Tony had known exactly what Charles had planned. To be fair... mostly he had planned for there to be kissing and fumbling and for Charles and Erik to make out like teenagers - 'sexy misdemeanors', as Tony was fond of referring to almost anything a sixteen year old could get up to with another human being in the state of New York. Charles had considered more, and the internet had been more than helpful for getting some perspective on what that might be like, but that was a distant thought when he could finally get away from high school finals and get his condo set up for-- visitors.

Erik.

He'd left Erik in his office with great reluctance, had stopped by the market and picked up turkey and those fixings and then potatoes - he wasn't joking about the Hanukkah pancakes - eggs and sausage and everything they might need for the week. And condoms and lube. He managed to not die of embarrassment, mostly, and had mostly put away the groceries when Erik arrived.

Charles couldn't deny the moments of tension as Erik stood at his threshold - a gym bag clenched tightly in his hand - looking just as nervous and awkward as Charles felt. After a deep breath he dragged the man in and kissed him soundly, glad he had at least managed to become expert at that. Erik stumbled in and the two of them ended up pressed against the closed front door, Erik's hands sliding against his waist again.

"Welcome to my condo..." He let out a nervous laugh and then pulled Erik in.

Charles watched Erik's face, nervous, as the man looked over everything. The kitchen was brilliant with modern cabinets and appliances, the living room was comfortable with a huge LCD TV and every video game system known to man and the hardwood floors were covered with pretty and modern rugs.

"What hardship you and Tony must bear," Erik said, pulling Charles to his side, but Charles felt himself wince.

"Sorry... It's just..." He blushed, looked away.

"Charles I didn't mean-" Erik ran a hand down his side. "I knew you and Tony were a bit flush. I shouldn't have teased." Charles felt much better after Erik punctuated the comment by kissing his forehead and then his nose. Charles pushed Erik back, the two of them landing on the couch, Charles straddling Erik close and kissing him, hard.

He'd never given much thought to the practicalities of the position - although he'd certainly seen Tony straddled by his fair share of women - but when Erik's hands ended up on his lower back, teasing his sweater up and those long, tempting, fingers slid against his back, Charles could suddenly see the appeal. With the two of them like this, his body suddenly very aware of Erik and how warm and solid he was, and as much as he wanted Erik to push for more, he was also glad when he contented himself to feeling up the planes of his back, rubbing softly and rucking up Charles' shirt just enough to make the parts Erik wasn't touching chill.

Their kiss ended slowly, and when he finally broke away his lips went to Erik's neck and softly kissed there. "Charles... you have no idea how much... how long I've wanted to... have you like this." Each kiss against Erik's neck was punctuated by a hitch in Erik's voice that sparked an intense feeling inside his chest.

 _He_ did this to Erik. "Tell me." His voice was half-begging, half-nervous.

Erik groaned, his hands trailing up higher, teasing the base of his ribs. "Before midsem, you've had me thinking about your mouth... your eyes..." Erik's fingers trailed over his stomach, across his belly and down so low his fingers teased over Charles' fly. "You were inside my head, Charles... so many nights."

Hearing that, hearing the way Erik sounded almost pained and desperate, Charles' own breath caught in his throat. "You too, Erik. The moment I saw you it was lightning in my chest. I've never wanted someone like that." Erik was an ache in his soul -- even in his own mind it sounded desperate, but Charles couldn't care.

"You weren't the only one tempted by those Wednesday evenings." The confession left him twisted and warm inside. The two of them were utterly hopeless, but at least they could be hopeless together.

Charles ached for Erik to push them farther, but as much as his fingers teased along his stomach, Erik didn't press them lower, and Charles managed to control his frantic kisses and finally roll onto the couch next to Erik with only a reluctant whine.

That set the pace for their days and nights the first two days, touches that drove them both crazy and left them both half hard, found them wrapped around each other at night and had Erik pressed against his back by morning - fully hard - two pairs of boxers the only thing between them. Their third lazy morning in bed, he had Erik off him, flat on his back, and the older man's boxers pulled down before he had even kissed him good morning.

A whimpered 'oh God, Charles', followed by an increasingly desperate series of moans was a far sweeter wake up than a romantic kiss on the shoulder and two two of them masturbating alone. The self-revelation that he _loved_ giving blow jobs came somewhere between the taste of Erik coming on his tongue and his panted 'your _mouth_ ', and it was even better when Erik pushed him onto his back and gave him some pointers by taking his entire cock into his mouth and leaving Charles moaning.

He truly hoped that Erik would stay - mostly - ignorant to exactly how much of an education the man was providing.

Tony would have called him a damn fool, but Charles already knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Erik, curled up on the couch, reading journals, watching TV, making out, taking, playing chess, eating Charles' turkey, stuffing and potatoes, trying Erik's really horrible latke things and the two of them ending up together, impossibly old and happy.

"It's too bad Hanukkah was during finals week," Charles finally said after the two of them had finished showering, now tangled together in boxers, legs wrapped around each other while they ate french toast. "I could have done eight little sexy Hanukkah presents."

"Next year," Erik promised him, wrapping his arm around Charles shoulder and kissing his neck and then licking off the syrup-kiss he'd left there.

Next year. Erik had said it as though _of course_ there would be a next year. Charles' chest ached from the promise, and he stole Erik's plate so he could straddle Erik again and just nuzzle into the man's chest. "I--" Charles didn't even know what to say or how much he wanted to say it. "We _fit_ , Erik."

Charles was in love. There was nothing else for it. He couldn't begin to imagine a time when he wouldn't be in love with Erik.

* * *

Erik had thought, maybe, that he would end up with Charles in his arms, kissing, naked, sliding against each other, and finding that things weren't quite as perfect as he might have imagined in his mind.

That was not the case. If anything, the reality was sweeter because his imagination couldn't have correctly filled in the breathy, whimpering sounds that Charles made when Erik's teeth grazed his collar bone, or the dozens of freckles that dotted his shoulders and back that made him look adorable when he snuggled into his pillow in the morning.

Charles was - in predictable youthful fashion - regularly horny, but much to his surprise, despite the two of them having the run of a very plush condo with a whirlpool tub the younger man mostly contented himself with driving Erik crazy with lust between the hours of 9pm and 10am, and the rest of the days were spent wrapped up in each other's arms actually talking.

Erik had never found it easy to share his thoughts or feelings, but he was somehow better able to when the two of them were staring at each other across a plastic chessboard with Charles' legs wrapped around his own.

They shared... the bad stuff. The weeks they had spent as teacher and student had revolved around those easy, light things that weren't hard to share, pranks in college, the fun things Charles had gotten up to with Raven, and Charles' many travels across Europe that resolved the mystery of the American with the perfect British accent. The bad stuff had been held in reserve, but Erik finally shared the death of his parents at a young age, his uncomfortable years in an orphanage under a director who wouldn't have seemed out of place in a depression era movie, growing up poor and wanting. Charles' own story had taken more coaxing, and Erik thought they boy might have thought he didn't have a right to complain but when the story of Charles, father dead, mother remarried to an abusive asshole with an abusive younger son, a distant mother, and a sister he never saw as she was constantly shoved away at boarding schools in Europe, too young to have Charles' escape to college, Erik realized that the bright and shining exterior that he hid behind was just that, an exterior that covered deep sadness.

"I know it seems silly to complain..." Charles had said after mentioning how long it had been since Raven had emailed.

"Charles." Erik pulled the boy over to him. "It's matured you. I wouldn't..." Love you. "Admire you so deeply if you weren't so brilliant and complicated."

Charles blushed, ran his fingers down Erik's side, pulled them together into a warm hug. "Let's talk about physics." It was a distraction and a way to push away from the heavier things that hung around both of them like lead weights. Arguing over string theory was fun.

"Newtonian or non-newtonian," Erik joked, grabbing Charles into a tighter hug.

"I don't know..." Charles voice suddenly took on a teasing, sultry quality. "Bodies in motion?" Suddenly he had an eager boyfriend straddling him. "Particle collisions?" Charles pressed his ass against Erik's crotch and he became instantly engaged, hands grabbing the boy's hips, trying to keep him from just rubbing him to completion just like that. "Coefficients of friction?" He ground down against him. "Supernovas?"

Erik laughed, clung so tightly he thought he might left ten little bruises in Charles hips, stilling him. "Charles..." I love you without all of that... "I'm never going to be able to teach a physics lecture again if you keep that up."

"You shouldn't be teaching physics anyway, you're an engineer." At first he thought that was the end of it, but then Charles canted his hips despite his fingers pinning him still. "Engineer us some sort of solution."

"Charles, there's no need to act as though we only have a week or two of this." Erik's heart hammered in his chest, afraid how easy it was to talk about tomorrow, next month, next year - he shouldn't have felt like that was a given, like Charles' wouldn't grow bored of someone almost twice his age soon enough, find himself with someone closer to his age, someone who could be sweet and unbroken for him.

Charles leaned back, and Erik let him go, the boy straddled his thighs instead of his hips, resting there, legs folded under himself. "Right now it's uncomplicated. In a few weeks it will be complicated again, and I..." Charles blushed, furiously. "I would very much like you inside of me before then."

Erik bit his tongue to keep from moaning. For all Charles could talk around something he was even more sexy when he was brutally direct. "Not all gay men..."

"I know the statistics," Charles answered, his fingers resting against Erik's neck. Erik realized - slowly - that Charles had his fingers pressed against his throat, feeling his pulse pound there. "Would you like a statistical breakdown of the proportion of nights I have put my fingers inside of myself and came when I thought of you?"

Erik thought it showed an exceptional amount of willpower and self-restraint that he didn't fuck Charles on the couch right then.

"Have you ever done this before, Charles?" Erik wasn't sure what answer he would have liked more.

Charles was obviously debating the same problem in his head, long enough that Erik wondered if he might be able to trust the answer when he finally did get it. "No." Erik knew he could trust that answer, with the bashful turn of Charles' head.

"Are you certain?" Erik didn't want to be this generous, this gentlemanly, he _wanted_ Charles, desperately, every inch of him, and denying himself what Charles was freely offering seemed unthinkable, and yet... he had to offer, had to ask. "I would wait for you, Charles."

"For years?" Charles asked, fingers teasing into his shirt. Even though his voice was teasing, Erik could see a touch of nervousness there.

It gave Erik a moment's pause, and then he realized that that would actually be a promise, Charles wanted to go to Oxford more than anything and Erik would have to wait for years to have the man back. "Forever if I had to."

"It's good I won't make you wait forever, then."

Their first time was slow and as sensual as Erik could manage given that the very idea of being inside of Charles made him aching hard, and having the boy under him, naked and writhing while Erik stretched him, only made him harder. Charles' slow, gasping litany of 'Erik, Erik, Erik' as Erik thrust inside of him shook him to his core and left him trembling long after he had come.

It wasn't until their second time - (two days later, when Charles had stolen the book he was reading, stroked Erik's cock a few times, rolled on a condom and sunk down on him - since Charles had not actually had work to do like he'd claimed, but had apparently been finger fucking himself in their bed) - that Erik finally let himself say what had been in his mind since the moment Charles had slid into his lap.

"I love you."

"Erik... love you, too." Charles pressed his nose and lips into Erik's shoulder and Erik knew, knew immediately, that Charles had been struggling to keep himself from saying that for days, maybe months.

All good things came to an end, sadly. Tony returned from Long Island in early January and Erik vacated the condo and his place in Charles' bed reluctantly, only hours before the man was set to arrive. Charles promised he would have their schedules worked out as soon as possible and Erik was warm and buzzed in the intervening week between Tony's return and classes starting up again despite the absence of Charles.

The occasional naughty text message didn't hurt.

Charles crashing through his office door Tuesday afternoon looking flushed and excited and brilliant didn't hurt either. "Erik, Erik!"

For a moment Erik was concerned that Charles would just pounce on him and the two of them would end up using his office furniture inappropriately, but Charles wheeled up just inside the door.

"I got in to Harvard!"

The slide of Charles' body against his and the way his tongue plundered Erik's mouth made the obvious question take several seconds to actually register in Erik's mind. When they finally broke apart he was able to voice it.

"Why were you applying to Harvard?" Not that he begrudged Charles wanting to go to the school.

Charles frowned, raked his fingers through his hair. "Well... I'm only taking classes here, right? I had hoped to do my actual undergraduate at Harvard."

"What?" Erik pulled away, hands on Charles' shoulders, holding him back far enough so he could look at Charles' face.

"You didn't know?" Charles looked stricken.

"Charles, love... why are you just taking classes here?" His heart was racing now, and it wasn't because Charles was there, perched on his lap - although that was contributing - instead his pulse was pounding in fear, fear of the answer, fear of what the answer said about Erik.

Charles' eyes were wide, filled with shock, horror, and unshed tears. "I'm still in high school. I thought you knew."

"How--" Erik didn't want to know. He told himself not to ask, don't ask. "How old are you?"

"I... Almost seventeen?" The sureness that Charles usually had in his tone was gone, filled with questions and hope. The tone would have broken his heart if he had any of his heart left that was full of something other than terror.

"Almost?!" Almost seventeen meant _sixteen_ and sixteen was... oh God.

"In... June?" That was a half year away, that wasn't soon, that wasn't almost.

He'd fucked a child. He'd fucked a child and told him he loved him. He'd had a child's mouth wrapped around his dick. He'd fallen in love with a child. He'd masturbated to a child's mouth and eyes. He'd slid his fingers into a child's ass and made him come. He'd taken a child's virginity.

He'd fucked a child and it had been the hottest thing he'd ever experienced in his life.

"You need to go." His voice was ice cold.

"Erik...?" _Erik, Erik, Erik_ all he could hear was Charles' voice catching as Erik fucked him.

"No. Charles, I can't-- God, I--"

Charles' eyes were wet, tears making blue eyes bluer, his lip trembled. "Maybe in June---"

"No!"

The boy fled.

Erik spent the afternoon in one of the staff restrooms, throwing up lunch and bile and wishing his body could somehow reject how much he _still_ wanted Charles. Even knowing what he did, he wanted Charles, wanted his body and his mind and his _life_. His stomach twisted and he tried to vomit again.

His body had nothing left but dry heaves and a soul-deep shame.

* * *

Charles was back in his room less than a half-hour later, and it was a testament to his friendship with Tony that the perky blonde that was probably less than three minutes from going down on him on the couch Erik had fucked him on was sent on her way as soon as Tony saw Charles' tear-streaked face.

"Charles?"

A wracked sob escaped his lips and then he was curled onto the couch next to Tony.

"I am going to castrate that son of a bitch." Pure anger radiated off of his friend.

"No, Tony... I..." He sniffed, wiped his tears and pressed his fingers to his eyes to try to stop crying. "I went to tell him, you know, about Harvard." He'd been so excited about that just two hours earlier. "And that... was when he realized that I was... well..."

"A high school kid?" Tony's hand fell onto Charles' shoulder and he squeezed. "That your jailbait-thing you have going on is an actual jailbait thing?"

"Tony!" Charles whined, because that was not helping. "But, yes, that."

Tony pressed his fingers against Charles' scalp and then slowly drew little circles there. The man sighed. "What's the issue? The sexy felonies have already happened."

"I don't _know_." Charles knew he must be whining, but he couldn't stop himself. "I said maybe in June we could... but he turned that down, too."

Fingers tightened in his hair, twisting, before Charles felt Tony get back under control and smoothed his hair down, brushing the brown strands. "Ass. I said he wouldn't look out of place in a maximum security prison..."

Charles felt his stomach twist and he got up, backed away from Tony. "No, nonono, you can't. Tony, I... I _love_ him, and you just can't..." He took a deep breath, calming, trying to keep himself from panicking. Tony was just trying to make him feel better. "You have to promise me you won't say anything to anyone, not even Raven."

Tony didn't look pleased at all, but after a few moments he nodded. "Deal. I won't. I will, however, spend the rest of my life thinking that he's an asshole."

He laughed, it wasn't a happy laugh, just a desperate sort of sound that made him ache. "Alright. I'm such a cliche. Fall in love, give it up, get dumped, pine forever."

"That's usually a girl cliche," Tony reminded him.

His next laugh was a little more natural, and he jabbed Tony with his elbow.

"Hey! I'm just trying to help!" He wriggled away. "Ow! If you keep elbowing me I am not going to tell you about the Hunter party that we were invited to this weekend. There will be alcohol and sexiness and I am certain you can forget all about your felon ex-boyfriend."

It sounded like a horrible idea.

Charles ended up having sex with two sophomores - not at the same time - and drinking enough to still have a bit of a hangover Sunday morning from a Friday party. It was the start of so, so, so many weekends to come.

He and Tony took two more classes at Columbia the next semester, Charles took biochem and organic chemistry, Tony took organic chemistry and electrical engineering, and thankfully _Charles_ didn't have to see Erik regularly ever again. He also was obscenely grateful that he didn't even realize Tony was taking his electrical engineering class from Erik until mid-semester.

Charles had finished his biochem mid-term early and staked out a position outside of Tony's lecture hall, leaning up against the wall, a mix of impatience and swagger that had suddenly become easier now that he had a few more saturday nights spent playing instead of working under his belt.

He'd shifted from a casual slouch to a slouch with one hand in his pocket and a finger looped into his belt loop when the class slowly filed out and Tony finally exited and slouched beside him.

"Let's get out of here."

"Was it really that hard? It's not like you needed the time."

Tony looked away, hand awkwardly ruffling his hair. "I may have spent the last half-hour glowering at the professor."

The question of why Tony did that died on Charles' lips as Erik came out of the class room, saw Charles and Tony standing together, took one long look down Charles' body and... ran away like the minions of hell were on his heels.

Tony took him out to get drunk and between the two of them they hooked up with all three of the Rasputin siblings.

Charles avoided Tony's electrical engineering class after that.

It was harder to find teachers, especially professors, over the summer, but despite Tony's misgivings he did help Charles narrow down Erik's schedule - he had one summer course that he taught - and Charles faked sick for his birthday in early June and he found himself standing outside of Erik's office door, heart pounding in his chest.

He slid up to the door, head resting against the doorframe.

Several long seconds passed, Erik working on something at his desk, before the man finally looked up and saw Charles standing there. For a long moment he was silent, and Charles watched the way Erik's eyes devoured him, he started at his lips, and Erik wet his lips with his tongue as his gaze slid hotly down his body, resting on his hips before going even lower.

"... Charles." The way Erik said his name made him hope, made him think that maybe... Erik said his name like it a prayer, like a breath of air, like water in the desert.

He fumbled, suddenly nervous. "Ask me if I have any plans for my birthday."

"I'm seeing someone." It was a twisted, dark mirror of the conversation six months ago. He wasn't teasing, wasn't going to say that he hadn't asked them yet. Erik was... seeing someone.

Not him.

Charles fled.

He made valedictorian - Tony got a B in art appreciation, finished Harvard in three years with a triple degree - Tony finished MIT in three with a duel degree, got into Oxford, got married - in Vegas, got divorced - not in Vegas, finally discovered the 'play hard' part of 'work hard and play hard', passed his quals, got his two PhD's in five years, pioneered two gene therapy techniques, was on People's list of most eligible bachelors for three of the four years he was eligible, and generally ran himself ragged in a way that even had Tony envious-slash-worried.

And then...

He wasn't certain why he had even inquired, maybe it was because Raven had decided to go to NYU, but he _had_ inquired, and so he became Professor Charles F. Xavier, biochemistry and genetics professor at Columbia University. He moved back in to the condo he had never sold where he'd lost his virginity and his heart and he threw himself into work with a vigor that even scared himself.

* * *

Erik reflected that it was a lot easier to get over someone if you couldn't follow their exploits on Page Six. Instead, every time he opened up the Post, more often than not there was a chance that he was going to see some picture of Charles - usually with Tony - reminding him that he was a fucked up, sick, and disgusting person who got off on fucking a child.

For the spring semester he'd seen Charles a handful of times, in their coffee shop, on the street, and on one memorable occasion after Tony's midterm. Every. Single. Time. He wanted to push Charles up the wall and fuck him until he squeaked and moaned Erik's name. He dreamed about Charles, even the tamest and straightest masturbation fantasy ended up being about Charles, he even had to bite back moaning Charles' name when he had sex with someone else entirely.

Charles had completely poisoned his mind and seeped into his subconscious and now he couldn't even have sex with adults.

After the first few weeks of terror that he was going to end up in prison, probably to be made someone's bitch because he was a pervert, had passed his fear was replaced more fully with shame. Weeks passed, and then months passed, and he had to admit he'd never loved someone nearly as much as he _still_ loved Charles.

Even after Charles left for Oxford - and mercifully made Page Six less frequently - the rare picture of him still made Erik's heart race. He'd even bought a copy of US Weekly when its cover advertised honeymoon pictures of some vapid and blonde model-actress because of the few fuzzy shots of Charles in swim trunks showing off his lightly muscled frame.

So he had slowly come to accept his life as a pervert and a stalker and probably a few other unflattering things.

While Charles summered in L.A. and wintered in New York and slept his way through the model-actor-socialite talent pool (if the tabloids were to be believed), Erik withdrew into teaching, never looked twice at another student, and found it all but impossible to date even when someone practically threw themselves at him.

The fact that Charles graduated Oxford with all sorts of honors and papers to his name only reached his consciousness when Page Six happened to have the - cheeky and inappropriate - sub-headline 'Professor XXX' with a shot of Charles in his gown and his sister Raven with her arm wrapped around him. The article itself gave him the heart-stopping revelation that Charles was going to come to _Columbia_ for his first post-graduate teaching position.

Erik seriously considered a sabbatical to Antarctica.

Instead, he ended up being suckered into teaching two physics courses and had very little excuse not to at least make a casual appearance in the staff science lounge and by the third week of school he'd remade the acquaintance of Charles Xavier.

"Charles, I'd like to you to meet Erik Lehnsherr. He's over in engineering, but we always seem to be in need of more professors for the core classes." Steve - one of the higher level physics profs - introduced Charles almost as soon as Erik entered the lounge, unable to escape.

"Oh, Erik and I are already well acquainted," Charles answered, just enough bite in his voice to make Erik want to flinch. "He was actually my professor for Phys3. Tony and I learned... a very great deal."

Erik wanted to die, to die and hide. He wasn't certain if Charles' voice always held that hint of seduction, but Steve didn't seem to think anything of it.

"I imagine you were quite the teacher's pet!" Steve answered immediately.

Charles smiled, bright and toothy and it made Erik's heart squeeze in his chest. "I couldn't say, you would really have to ask Erik. What do you say, professor? Was I a teacher's pet?"

He didn't flinch, gasp, moan or anything else embarrassing, he managed to keep his face impassive enough while he gave a great show of thinking it over. "You and Tony both set the curve in the class, teacher's pet or no, the other students couldn't have been particularly fond."

Erik was positive he imagined the brief flicker of disappointment across Charles' face, and Steve definitely looked disappointed for whatever reason that Erik couldn't begin to understand.

"Ah, well," Steve patted Charles on the shoulder and headed towards the door. "I will leave you two to catch up."

And then, not only was Erik in the physics lounge with Charles, he was _alone_ in the physics lounge with Charles.

"How have you been, Erik?" Charles broke the silence and he just sounded... sweet, his voice casual and calm, not flirty, not hurt, just... nice enough.

"Not bad..." His own voice must have been shaking, at least slightly. He hoped he was just imagining it. "Still teaching, still getting roped into physics classes. You look... well, Charles." Really well. Erik hadn't seen him in ages, but he still looked painfully young with soft hair that begged to have fingers run through it and lips that were somehow even more red and kissable than he remembered. The only real difference was he was just a touch less slender and his eyes were older, somehow.

"Well enough," Charles answered after a moment. Erik wondered how he must look, he was still fit - falling asleep after a ten mile run was one of the few times he was too tired to dream of sex - but he'd already started to grey at the temples and his eyes had long since become tired and baggy. He was well into his late thirties and he felt it every morning, and right now he felt even older.

"I heard you got married," he said before he could stop himself.

Charles looked away. "And divorced."

"What do they have you teaching?"

"Intro physics, some intro to biophysics, intro to genetics... Nothing special. I understand that you cannot have the fun seminars until you have paid your dues." Charles moved his hands while he talked, excited. It was different than Erik remembered, Charles had always been quiet and not particularly frenetic.

"Even after you pay your dues you still will end up with the intro courses, Charles."

The man smiled, tilted his head slightly, and Erik remembered that Charles instantly. "I don't mind, honestly, getting to interact with students, watching them form opinions, grow... it's intoxicating, isn't it?"

Yes! Erik's mind shouted 'yes' and 'I still love you, I'm still intoxicated by you.'

Charles flushed slightly, and Erik wondered if somehow Charles could read his mind, but Charles just ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it away from where it had fallen into his eyes. "You... you look good, Erik."

And then Charles was gone, leaving Erik staring after him with his chest aching for something he would never be allowed to have ever again. Apparently he wasn't a pedophile, just a creepy stalker pervert who had no idea when a relationship was over.

* * *

If there had ever been any doubt in his mind that Charles was still hung up on Erik, it was dispelled the moment that Erik was within five meters of him. His senior year of high school had been filled up with vapid one-night-stands and Erik, his college years hadn't been much better.

Tony had once voiced the theory that Charles fundamentally believed in love at first sight, or 'love at first fuck' as he called it on his cruder days, and since that lightning bolt to the heart had remained elusive in the intervening years Charles had made it a mission to get as many shots at love at first sight as possible.

He had a psychology degree; he knew Tony was probably right.

Charles also knew that Tony filled his life with meaningless fucks because he still lived in the reckless-teen-immortality mindset despite the death of his parents. So while the two of them had acquired a mutual unhealthy fascination with bars and fucking, at least they had both come by it honestly.

Professorhood was good for him, at least, in a way he hadn't expected. Even though he ended up spending weekends at bars and hitting on men and women by complimenting their mutations, he went home with fewer of them and regretted it less. His self-imposed rule of not dating students - and the fact that he was a full decade younger than most of the professors - left him starved for attention from someone who might be able to stimulate both mind and body.

Less late nights out meant more time messaging, texting, or phoning with Tony - who thankfully didn't call him on the fact that they were becoming an old married couple, or something. And Tony, for all his narcissistic self-involvement, knew exactly what was bothering Charles even though the two of them never mentioned 'Professor Lehnsherr' by name.

Raven didn't notice anything wrong, thankfully, but she was five years younger and just getting used to college, but he found spending time with Raven cut into his own time to wallow in self-pity. He found himself dodging the co-eds at New York University just as doggedly as he did the ones at Columbia, sadly, and spending time on campus with Raven was hardly a break sometimes.

Betsy stopped by every once and a while, mostly for some fashion event or another, and Charles made a point of having lunches with her. Betsy - despite her life in fashion - was brilliant, which was what had attracted Charles to her in the first place, but she was also astute, and nearly a mind reader when it came to other people. After only a few weeks of marriage she had decided there was 'someone else' - thought Charles was cheating on her - and after Charles had explained that the 'someone else' was actually just the guy who had broken his heart ages ago Betsy had told him to stuck it up, stop being such a closet case, and then had asked for a divorce.

 _She_ knew something was wrong, even if she didn't quite put it all together and realize that Charles' return to his old high school stomping grounds might have been the root of the issue.

Charles ignored the gossip on Page Six - 'Professor X has lunch with X-wife, talk reconciliation' - and laughed when he got a text from Tony later the day the story had broke. _If you marry her again, I will come to your wedding just to object._ to which he had responded _Don't worry, I'm Nikki, not Liz_.

He got used to teaching classes, got used to doing research and collaborating with some of the doctors over in the medical college, he got used to passing Erik in the hall, and he got used to being more drunk on weekends where he'd seen Erik in the hall. Other than the slight ache in his chest and the twist in his stomach whenever he saw Erik ignore him, he was doing well.

Charles was well aware of the idea of being hung up on your first, but what made his obsession with Erik so frustrating was that Charles knew even if Erik had been his tenth he would have still been hung up on the man.

For midterms, the two of them ended up getting assigned to proctor _two_ exams together, four total hours spent pacing around the same classrooms, sitting near but not too near, not talking, not looking at each other, not even communicating anything that might give a hint that they had seen each other naked...

It was too much for Charles, and against his better judgement - after grading his midterms - made sure to get as completely drunk as possible and could barely remember his own name, or where he lived. None of that mattered, though, because seven very generous helpings of scotch into the evening he met... someone. He would likely have to ask for his name again in the morning... he wasn't even certain that he'd asked.

What mattered was that he felt something for the first time in a very long time. He was very certain he'd complimented the man's blue eyes (OCA2 gene), his black-brown hair - not a mutation but still _groovy_ , and the very attractive greying at the temples (Bcl2 and w). He wasn't entirely certain how they got to his place - mostly because Charles couldn't remember where he lived - but they _did_ and even though he was more than a little drunk he ended up receiving a _very_ serviceable blowjob and getting mind-numbingly ravished.

The guy didn't even mind when Charles caught himself saying 'Erik, Erik, Erik' like it was some sort of prayer grabbing the man and whimpering.

And he fell asleep like that, hands running down broad and muscular planes of the man's back, fingers pressing gently as he rubbed and touched, mouth whispering 'I love yous' as he kissed his neck and pressed his nose there as well.

He heard - maybe just imagined - the way that low, rumbling, enticing voice said 'I love you, Charles... so much...' but it wasn't important. He felt brilliant and stretched and loved and content for the first time in ages, years, maybe even forever. He ached with the bone deep contentedness of finally having something go _right_ and he slept like a very well shagged rock.

* * *

Erik knew, intellectually, that having sex with Charles - while Charles was mostly drunk - wasn't going to solve anything, but even through the thick haze of alcohol, Charles had still clearly wanted him, panted for him, wrapped his arms around Erik and said 'I love you' so many times Erik lost count. Erik couldn't deny that the slow burn scientific flirting and come-ons were even more enticing than they had been seven years ago when Charles had talked supernovas and coefficients of friction, but it was so pleasant to know that the geeky scientist was still hiding under the playboy exterior.

So little had changed, though, in his once-again lover's body. His back was still hopelessly freckled, his eyes still soul crushingly blue, and his hands and mouth just as sensual as ever. He still looked a bit childish, but his shoulders had filled out, as had his waist and legs, and at least some of the boyishness had faded. Charles looked even more lovely and Erik was even more completely unable to resist him.

They would have to talk - of course - and would have to make up for the lost years spent apart but Erik was _hopeful_ ; what had felt like an unbridgeable distance was suddenly manageable. He'd gotten horrible at talking in the past seven years, but he would manage, for Charles.

A colossal weight had lifted from his chest, finally knowing for certain that it had been _Charles_ moreso than Charles' youth that had captivated him years ago. And if Charles was willing to give it a shot, Erik was more than willing.

That was why, when he woke and found Charles laying next to him - fulfilling most of his more tender fantasies by hugging his own pillow, hair touseled from sleep, drooling slightly - Erik leaned over and kissed down his back. And he even passed on the morning blowjob he knew Charles would be only to happy to give in order to climb out of bed and cook Charles breakfast - eggs and soldiers with orange juice; if voluntarily cooking a digustingly runny-yolked egg for someone wasn't love, Erik didn't know what was.

Erik settled the whole mess on to a tray and brought it in to Charles' bedroom, brought it in and then slowly worked a few more kisses up Charles' back. "Charles, you are probably more than a little hung over. Breakfast will help."

Charles 'mmm'd and snuggled into his pillow more tightly before finally releasing it and gently rolling, eyes closed and covered with an arm to protect him from too much light. He was... gorgeous, neatly muscled with a tempting dark line of hair on his stomach that drew Erik's eyes downward, and then Charles drew away his arm and nothing but love and warmth enfused those blue eyes - until they hardened, ice cold.

"Erik."

Erik froze. That was not the tone of voice of a man who had expected to see him. It was hard and biting and as angry as he'd ever heard the man's voice. "Charles?"

A dozen emotions crossed through Charles' eyes, far too fast for Erik to decypher them, but none of them were good. The warm glow from last night, the brilliant, blinding feeling of love, was gone. "Well." He watched Charles suck in a deep breath, let it out. "That... well it was good, of course..." Good? Erik felt his heart contract, grabbed and squeezed painfully. "So... thank you for that, and..." He glanced around, saw the tray on the corner of the bed. "Breakfast, of course... but if you wouldn't mind I have a very long day and several things I must be getting back to."

Erik took several lingering seconds to find his voice, air twisting up in his lungs and refusing to let him breathe. "Right..." There were no words. "Charles, I--"

"Erik," Charles interrupted him immediately. "Thank you."

Charles made it a dismissal and a jab and Erik had never heard those two words strung together in such a way to make them so harsh before. He nodded, did his best to wipe the look on his face that must have been hurt, turned, found his pants - discarded by the door - and headed towards the living room to find his shirt and shoes.

The ride down from the upper floors was long, and he felt like he was going through one long, elaborate, walk of shame. He had no idea what had changed, Charles had seemed so intent, so enamored, last night, he'd gasped his name and 'I love you's constantly and he didn't think he flattered himself to think that the sex had been... really damn good.

Charles had certainly been moaning like it was.

He spent most of the day getting drunk and sitting around at home feeling sorry for himself. Erik had no idea exactly what had happened. He knew he wasn't some pinnacle of desirability, but he also knew that Charles had loved him years ago. To have him like he had and then have Charles... change on him, cold and distant and completely uninterested, it hurt.

Sunday he managed to actually pull himself together and start to accept that he had truly missed his chance, years and years ago, to do the right thing. In the cold hindsight of the present it was easy to see that he had freaked out over something that was - comparatively - minor, and Charles had even come to see him on his seventeenth birthday - legal by New York law. Erik hadn't been seeing anyone, he'd just been too scared of what he felt for Charles, a man he'd started to think of as a boy. But the boy-man he'd fallen in love with eight years ago was changed and it wasn't entirely for the better. Erik would have still loved him, no matter how he might have changed, as long as that tempting core of Charles still remained, but it was clear that - regardless of what Charles had said while drunk - he no longer loved Erik enough to tolerate his presence beyond a casual fuck.

Monday, however, Charles didn't come to school - and didn't even call out sick until well into the afternoon. Erik covered his physics class when Steve had asked, but mostly he was worried. He tried to call - no answer, not even from a generic phone in the physics building.

By one pm he was more than slightly worried.

By two he had sucked up his fear and hesitation and called the only number on the planet that he was even more terrified to call than Charles.

"Stark Industries."

"Yeah... I need to speak to Tony." Erik knew he had long since given up the right to be able to call Stark 'Tony', but it was potentially an emergency.

"Is he expecting your call?"

"God I hope not." He'd really hate to think that Tony was expecting him to call because he'd fucked his best friend and now his best friend didn't even properly call out sick from work. "If he's in... tell him it's Erik Lehnsherr."

"Please hold."

Erik knew, in general, that one did not simply call one of the leading aeronautical companies and ask for the CEO and - honestly - Stark was also sort of the mascot, but this was possibly an emergency.

"I am going to fucking castrate you," Stark answered - almost five minutes later.

"Did... did Charles call?" Because how else would the man want to castrate him, and really that was hardly fair because Charles had come onto him.

"No. I am capable of basic deduction however. First: you called me. You would never call me for anything but the most dire circumstances, thus, we are in dire circumstances, but not just _any_ dire circumstance, a Charles circumstance. What could my erstwhile physics and engineering professor have _possibly_ done that would create dire Charles circumstances? You fucked him." Erik flinched. "You fucked him and now he's sulking and probably drunk, or hung over, or so drunk he doesn't know he's hung over. How am I doing so far?"

"I-- don't know if he's drunk or not." Erik looked down at his feet, and then his hands, and then he raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture he knew he'd picked up from Charles but couldn't stop if he tried. "We had sex on Friday, and he didn't even call out sick today until almost 1pm."

"I will be there two hours after I get to my jet. Meet me at Newark in two and a half hours and look conciliatory."

Erik met Tony at Newark airport exactly two and a quarter hours later. Apparently Tony had done _something_ and he actually ended up getting waved on to some private tarmac area and he picked up Tony _at_ his jet.

Tony looked - as usual - suave, sophisticated, and pissed off at him.

"So... I'm sure there's a very good reason you drunk hooked up with Charles." Tony's voice suggested he actually found this incredibly unlikely.

Erik fiddled with the clutch of his car, headed back out of the airport and towards Manhattan, assuming - probably correctly - that he was playing chauffeur to bring Tony to Charles' condo. "He-- I ran into him in a bar, _accidentally_ ," he defended himself, just in case that needed to be said. "He flirted, blue eye genes, grey hair genes..."

"You are going a bit grey around the edges..." Tony noted, probably just to be an ass, but Erik put up with it, because obviously Tony thought this was important enough to get a superjet from California to New York on no notice.

"I thought... well it reminded me of..." It reminded him of Charles straddling him and asking him to talk supernovas to him.

Tony waved his hand in a 'get on with it' gesture. "Yes, geeky chat up lines. I'm familiar."

Erik snapped. "Well pardon me for thinking him yelling 'Erik, Erik, Erik' while I fucked him meant he knew who he was having sex with!"

Tony made a face, although Erik couldn't tell if it was a face that didn't want to hear about Charles having sex, or if it was just because the sex also featured Erik. "He must have been totally gone-- Really that's when I take him home, when he starts calling me Erik."

A completely rational and appropriate spike of jealousy hit him right in the chest.

"Oh, suck it up, at least one of us was there for him the last eight years. I have a long-standing, Charles-approved, right to hate your guts."

Erik's fingers and knuckles turned completely white as he gripped the steering wheel so tight he thought it might shatter. "Did you - either of you - ever think that I had every right to be freaked out that I'd... that I'd fucked someone who was legally a child?"

Tony took a long, deep breath, let it out. "You gave up the moral high-ground of that defense when you dissed him when he turned seventeen."

The two of them were silent, stewing in their own rage when Erik finally pulled up in front of Charles condo.

"Erik." He turned to Tony, startled. "Charles has been through a lot, and I will not have a single nice thing to say if you do not tell me something right now." Erik nodded, slowly. "Do you still love him?"

"I never stopped."

Tony climbed out of the car. "Fuck off, he'll call you or not."

* * *

Charles awoke to a pounding in his head and his ears that made him glower at the front door of the condo from where he was sprawled out on his sofa. Despite the pounding in his head, and the rather impressive beer bottle collection he'd managed to acquire around him, he was not - actually - that drunk; he was, however, incredibly hung over.

He fought down the urge to yell 'piss off' at the door and rolled over.

A few moments later he heard the jingle of keys and turned back over, frowning at the door. No one had keys to his condo, he was a complete and total sap, and fell in love instantly, but he didn't just give people keys to his...

Tony opened the door, standing on the threshold and then sweeping in like he owned the joint. A travel-sized duffle landed on the floor with a thud that echoed behind his eyelids. Before Charles was really aware of what was happening there was a glass of water dangling near the front of his face and Tony was easing him up into a sitting position.

"Are you going to vomit?" The question was obviously first and foremost on Tony's mind. Charles shook his head. "Go brush your teeth and put some pants on, then."

Tony disposed of his artfully arranged empty beer bottle collection while Charles was in the bathroom.

"Not that I don't appreciate you stopping by, Tony... but why are you here?" Suddenly he wondered if something truly epic had ended up on Page Six or some blog. Tony wouldn't be here otherwise.

His friend wiggled the water in front of him again and he took it, drinking down half in one long series of gulps.

"I received a - rather worried - phone call, actually." Tony said it like it was pulling teeth, and Charles looked over at his friend, confused.

Charles supposed it was rather out of character for him; even with his admittedly very public playboy lifestyle he rarely - if ever - missed a class or failed in his academic obligations. He and Tony were festidious about that. Still, he had no idea who might have called Tony, of all people, when Charles failed to properly call in sick for work. Raven was only a few dozen blocks away---

" _Erik_ called you?"

Tony shrugged, taking his glass of water back to the fridge to get him more water, returning and sitting down again. Charles wrapped his arms around his friend and pressed his head to Tony's shoulder. "I'm a huge slut."

"Yes. I think when you reach the moment that you accidentally sleep with your ex-boyfriend while trying to get over your ex-boyfriend you've really reached an apex, or a nadir, maybe both at once." Only Tony could make that sound comforting.

The long, wracked sigh that came from Charles' chest even surprised him slightly. "I don't know how I'm supposed to actually get over him. I thought - maybe - I could come here and see that he's moved on and then just finally end it in my own mind but..."

Tony didn't say anything, and Charles struggled for a way to finish his own sentence.

"Instead I'm just another casual fuck, round two." He squeezed Tony in a rib-crushing hug that his friend only accepted because it was Charles doing the crushing.

"Charles..." It was Tony's turn to sigh, clearly one of those long conversations about how he was supposed to get over Erik, sleep with someone properly, find a better true love, and run off to Cazumel or something was imminent. "I'm sure you know I have a long running hate for your ex-boyfriend."

"Because you're the best; one of us has to hate him, and it's not me." Charles couldn't do anything but love him, no matter how much Erik hurt him, it seemed.

"I am - you owe me like... at least a thousand dollars worth of scotch, just saying." Tony gave his shoulder a squeeze. "As much as it _pains_ me to say this, I have it on very good authority that your asshole ex-boyfriend didn't think it was a casual fuck until you kicked him out of the door Saturday morning."

"...He did cook me breakfast..." Charles curled up his feet under him, feeling very small and more than a little vulnerable. Erik did that to him, made him feel like a kid. Sometimes he _was_ a kid, but Erik could make him feel so fragile sometimes.

Tony rapped a knuckled fist against his head and Charles flailed to get Tony's hand off of him.

"Ow, stop it, Stark!" He did manage to choke down more water, and was slowly starting to feel human, however. "He called _you_?"

"This is a conversation I think you should be having with Lehnsherr, Charles. I don't do gooey emotions."

"You do for me." Charles couldn't help but grin up at him. Tony could protest all he wanted, Charles had known the man since they were seven years old and he was more than capable of emotion when he wasn't hiding behind that shell of his.

"Only you, Charles."

He really did need to talk to Erik. "Did you know, even after eight years, he still falls for mutant eyeball chat up lines?"

"I'm pretty sure that's how you lost your virginity," Tony answered, immediately.

Charles laughed, finally feeling just a bit better, and then he chugged the rest of his water, standing shakily. "Nope. Coefficients of friction." He spun, which was a mistake because he was suddenly a little more nauseus than he would have expected. "It was _almost_ on that couch."

Tony didn't have the good graces to even flinch. "Charles - you do not want to initiate a competition for amount of sex had on this couch."

"You're probably right." He went on a quest for more water, standing in front of the fridge while he tried to collect his thoughts, for the first time allowing what Tony had said to really sink in.

Erik had been worried about him - worried enough to call Tony. Charles had it straight from Tony that he had threatened Erik with terrible bodily harm at least five times throughout the spring semester all those years ago - a clear abuse of Tony's blackmail material he had on Erik - but it had obviously stuck with Erik. And while he was pretty certain Erik had tried to call him, when that hadn't worked he'd... he'd gotten Tony here, the only man who could definitely pick Charles up no matter his mood.

"I'm hopeless."

"It's not my fault you're picky, Charles," Tony yelled from the couch. "You could have so much more fun!"

His friend's heart wasn't in it, though, it never was. The two of them never tried to change each other, even when Tony dragged him out to bars and clubs and everywhere else there was always that underlying knowledge that he really was the Nikki of the pair. Maybe if Tony had had it all, the way Charles had for a few amazing weeks, Tony would be a bit more picky, too, but Charles wasn't going to change his friend any more than Tony would change him. "I'm going to have plenty of fun."

"If you're going to make me take back my grudge I'm going to need a form signed in triplicate and notorized."

"It was easier to get divorced," Charles grumbled from the kitchen, staring and vaguely wanting to eat something but not quite having the energy to cook. "Tony... love... will you cook something?"

"That only works on asshole professors who sleep with you." Tony pulled out his cellphone. "I'll call something in to that jewish deli thing in the basement, _and_ pick it up, however."

"My hero."

Tony returned with delicious and greasy hangover food, they played GoldenEye - so retro - and then caught up on all the latest gossip that involved them bringing up silly pictures from US Weekly and Page Six and everywhere else and then demanding the real scoop.

The throbbing pain in Charles' head and his heart had mostly disappeared by the time he and Tony crashed - Tony taking the very comfortable couch that was now in his old bedroom - and even with jetlag and the huge time difference the two of them were awake in time for a jog down in the condo's exercise room and more delicious hangover food.

"Should I clear out?" Tony asked, dangling a formed-pressed-hashpotato monstrosity over his mouth.

"I'm not sleeping with him." Charles shot back. "Again... any time soon."

"That doesn't mean you aren't going to cuddle on the couch and talk about your feelings. I'm allergic to feelings."

"Mmmhmmm..." Charles snaked an arm around Tony's waist and hugged him.

"Hives! Breaking out in hives, Charles!"

The two of them laughed, and broke apart, and then Charles prodded the egg-bacon-cheese sandwich monstrosity he'd cooked for himself.

"Come back in a few weeks?" Charles asked. "Either way, I'll want to have you around." This might go horribly, or wonderfully, and Tony would be the one who might actually understand it.

"Done." Tony looked... torn. "Maybe I can get that form signed in triplicate."

"Tony..." For the first time since his friend had showed up he realized that Charles falling - or re-falling, or re-thinking-it-was-ok-to-fall - for Erik might actually be difficult for the man who stayed around and knew why Charles had been so broken. "If this isn't alright with you---"

"Charles." Charles could sense the beginning of something that sounded suspiciously like feelings, so he let Tony continue his thought in peace. "Erik is an ass, a brilliant, intelligent, emotionally constipated ass, but you love him, so that really doesn't matter. And if he hadn't broken your heart I would have poached him for Stark Industries years ago."

Well. Charles supposed that settled everything... except the part where he actually had to talk to Erik again.

* * *

Erik wasn't stalking... but it was impossible to _not_ notice when Charles returned to school on Tuesday looking mostly none the worse for wear. He miiight have peeked online and made a cursory google-stalk on Monday, late, and discovered that the internet was now convinced that Stark and Charles had had some sort of late night rendez-vous, which was annoying, but hardly the point. He was beginning to get the idea that internet rumors were not the most reliable. He probably should have figured that out years ago.

Still, he decided to wait a day, unsure of his welcome despite what Stark had suggested yesterday afternoon. He certainly hadn't said it in so many words but... Charles was in love with him. Charles was so hung up on him that he drunkenly picked up people and called them Erik.

He'd never really made the connection - although maybe he should have - that he hadn't just _fucked_ Charles, he'd fucked _up_ Charles.

There was a great deal of comfort, though, in knowing that he hadn't completely damaged the brilliant, witty mind, the scientific curiosity, the flirty, open-hearted acceptance that had made him fall in love with Charles so many years ago. He didn't want to mess this up, though, not a second... third... fourth time. He'd really rather not screw things up with Charles a fourth time. So, in an effort not to jump into a conversation or a confrontation that he knew he wasn't ready for, he hid for most of Tuesday. Charles didn't seek him out, and the two of them kept their distance.

It gave him some time to reflect, and some clarity. Tony's question hadn't shaken him on Monday, but now he found it gnawing at him. He didn't doubt his own feelings, didn't doubt Charles' feelings, but now he found he was slightly terrified of the reprocussions. Even eight years ago he'd thought it was incredibly likely that Charles would move on, find someone younger and sexier and more in keeping with... everything. Charles was terrifyingly brilliant, beautiful, rich, famous, and painfully young, even now; Erik was going to be forty sooner than he'd like to think about it. The niggling worry at the back of his mind made him consider the possibility that after Charles got - back - what he'd been hung up on for all these years it might not measure up. Could Erik even compare with... himself, a younger man, more open, more available, quicker to love, _easier_ to love, than the closed off man he'd become?

Tuesday left him the day to come to terms with the fact that it didn't matter. If Charles would have him, he wasn't going to deny himself just to avoid hurting. He'd tried that once before and it had hurt for almost a decade.

So while Erik would have been conflicted had Charles come to see him on Tuesday, Erik could be calm and mostly settled when he came to Charles' office on Wednesday afternoon. He leaned against Charles' doorframe, hopefully casual; Charles looked up and saw him there, surprise - the pleasant sort - and then warmth filling his eyes as he recognized the decade-old pose for what it was.

"Plans--?" Charles question died on his lips, and it gave Erik a little moment of fear, that they wouldn't have the same conversation a third time and do it properly. "Come in, Erik, please."

He steeled himself, checked over his shoulder and when Charles nodded he closed and locked the door, settling in to one of the mostly comfortable chairs that Charles apparently left in his office for students visiting for office hours. He wondred if any of them came to flirt instead of learn...

"I'm..." Erik tried to get his words together, had to push them passed a closing throat. "I'm sorry I slept with you." Hurt crossed Charles' face, Erik pushed forward. "I'm sorry I slept with you _when_ I did, and _how_ I did, Charles, but I'm not sorry for the rest."

Charles just leaned against his hand, propping himself up on the desk, fingers spread through his hair, looking at Erik like he was a mathematical proof for P=NP, impossible and wonderful and far away. Erik and Charles didn't even _like_ computational mathematics. "I'm certain it's become apparent that I never really got over you, Erik."

Erik nodded - that much was clear after he'd had a moment to think. "Likewise."

The younger man's eyebrow arched and his lip quirked, skeptical and dubious. "Completely true - I've had more cars than relationships since we broke up." And admittedly he'd wrecked one car, but it was still hardly an incredible number.

Charles... blushed, looked away, and Erik caught something that looked an awful lot like shame. The look ripped into his heart because he knew, immediately and instantly, what had caused it.

"And I don't care if you've had a hundred," Erik said, completely and totally honest. Charles had been a seventeen year old boy with a lothario for a BFF, he'd hardly expected Charles to be a monk.

"Really, Erik? Because--" Suddenly he wondered if it was more than a hundred... eight years was a lot of nights and weekends. He reminded himself that he really didn't _actually_ want to know.

"If I get to be first - and last - I don't mind not being your only."

Erik could only describe the way Charles' eyes shifted as 'melty' in a very good way, and suddenly he had a young and exhuberant pile of biophysics professor on his lap. He would have loved a kiss, but the warm press of nose against his neck and the hot breath that accompanied it was just as sweet.

"Did you stay up all night thinking of seductive lines to use on naive professors?" Charles voice was teasing and so, so wonderful. He hadn't heard that light, happy, carefree voice in ages and it made him ache. Charles, _his_ Charles was still very much there under the armor Charles had been wearing with him before.

"Of course. If I didn't rehearse I would have fucked this up horribly." Erik wrapped his arms around Charles, held him close, ran his hands up and down his back and just let himself feel and memorize and remember every inch of him like a starving man sitting down at a feast. "You know I say the wrong things."

"Me too." Charles sighed, kissed his neck softly, and struggled to sit up. His eyes were soft, but serious. "I shouldn't have tossed you out on Saturday."

"And I shouldn't have left, Saturday or eight years ago." That weight was off his chest now, he had a beautiful and sexy man on his lap who he'd loved for years and he wasn't going to waste even more time on regrets. "You are coming to dinner with me, I am taking you home, and then I am going to kiss you senseless on the couch like we're teenagers again."

Charles accepted by sliding off of his lap, leaning forward, and brushing their lips together soft and slow and painfully sweet. "Just a preview."

Something sagged in Charles' back when he stood near the door, looking out, and for a moment Erik worried that Charles had changed his mind.

"If we go out... there'll probably be cameras."

Oh. Right. Charles wasn't just... 'Charles' anymore, he was some New York socialite... or something. Getting caught on film together would not be particularly cool.

"So... if you wanted to stay in, I'd understand." Charles shrugged, grabbing his bag and shouldering it, stuffing a few papers in. "They're generally pretty good about staying out of the classroom but everything else is fair game."

"I don't suppose I'd have very long before someone is rooting through my trashcan, would I?" Erik asked, mostly joking, but the look that flitted across Charles' face was pained.

"No... if it needs to be a secret, I understand, I just..." Charles looked like Erik had kicked him, and even though he'd promised himself he'd try to treat Charles like they were just starting to date he pulled the man into his arms and kissed his forehead, and then his cheek, and then softly on the lips.

"Charles... if you want to be photographed with an ancient engineering professor with greying hair, I am not going to complain one bit. I'm done pretending I don't..." He took a deep breath, tipped Charles' face up so he could look into those ridiculous blue eyes he'd fallen in love with. "I'm done pretending I don't love you."

Charles grabbed him, pulled him into a kiss that curled his toes. "You're hardly ancient. What, thirty-five?"

"Thirty-eight."

The younger man waved his hand, details, and then grabbed him by the wrist. "Come on then. I was promised dinner."

Dinner. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner again. Erik would give him as many as it took, and if Charles didn't mind that being public he wasn't going to disagree.

Epilogue:

Some things were surprisingly easy to get back into. Charles enjoyed his evenings in, curled up in Erik's arms while they debated physics, politics, life, the universe, and everything. He enjoyed curling up with someone and _not_ having sex - although there was definitely more than a little sex - and just sleeping, warm and content and loved. Erik had become a better cook since their last time dating, and Charles had become a worse cook, but he could handle that for sinfully delicious homemade reubens and awesome pot roast.

The weirdness seemed to come in at all the things that they'd never worked out eight years ago.

 _The Press_. Charles had mostly avoided the limelight when he was a kid and it had only really exploded after he'd left for college and started partying, but now it was far too late to avoid getting followed around and Erik handled it... ok-ish. He could deal with the constant camera presence when they were out, he even did well enough with the random girls hitting on Charles _while_ they were out, but he had a hard time with the headlines, the 'is he too old' the accusations of craddle robbing, and, of course, the "Battle for Professor X's Heart Ends in Bloodshed" just because Charles had accidentally broken Tony's nose with a frying pan that had nothing to do with fighting and everything to do with Charles giving a stirring rendition of his and Erik's last tennis match at the gym.

 _Raven_. That had been an interesting conversation. 'Hey, Raven, this is Erik, my ex-and-current boyfriend, yeah, totally lost my virginity to him.' Raven had slapped Erik pretty hard for that, but Charles mostly thought he deserved it. Since she'd been off in Europe she'd missed the worst of the drama and had mostly come to accept the brooding presence of her brother's boyfriend. Charles - and Erik - probably could have done without the jokes about detention, though.

 _Tony_. Tony was... slow to warm up. He'd had the front row tickets to Charles' life post-Erik and he was none too pleased to wait out the first tense months of the relationship. Mostly they were tense because Erik was very certain he wouldn't leave the relationship with his nuts intact if things did go south. Charles had just smiled when his best friend had informed Erik that he had to make up for eight years of 'epic fail' before Tony might start to consider them even.

Tony was a softy, however, and had warmed up around eight months, not eight years. Around month eleven they were wasting weekends at Stark Industries blowing things up and designing fast things that went vroom.

The whole mess of them ended up taking Christmas in Westchester instead of in the city - the condo was too small and Tony's 'proper' house was in L.A. - and he and Tony ended up out on the patio towards the beginning of the night while Raven and Erik were working on dinner.

"Can I poach him?" Tony asked, all smiles and teeth.

"If you love him so much, why don't you marry him?" He might have been teasing with his late twenties but between him and Tony they would always be teenagers.

"That is more your question, but you didn't answer mine."

Charles sighed, letting his tumbler of brandy rest at his hip as he leaned against the stone of the mansion. "If he says yes."

"Ringing endorsement." Tony kicked off from where he'd been resting against the side of the house. "You could both come work there, and if you're really so hung up on molding impressionible young minds you can just adopt lots of babies. You're disgusting."

That was enough to rip loose an easy laugh from Charles' chest. "You two will just gang up on me and blow things up."

"Come on, we're... twenty-five, it's time to be all mature and save the world... or something."

The idea that Tony would ever be that mature was deeply hilarious, but the hopeful look in his eyes was a little too much to resist. "If he says yes."

* * *

"He'll say yes," Raven shot at him, poking him with the wooden spoon that had just come out of the pot that was currently boiling potatoes. "I mean he's been in love with you for, what, nine years?"

Erik flinched away, but he couldn't deny the fact that he was _nervous_ , no matter what Raven - and Tony - said.

"Nine and a half," Erik couldn't help but correct. "He said it was love at first sight, Monday, just before Labor Day... three pm, if I'm not mistaken."

"You make me want to barf." Raven's smile said nothing of the sort. "Besides that's only nine and a quarter."

He went back to work on the carrots and cranberry sauce and the other ditritus that apparently signified 'Christmas'. He wasn't overly religious when it came to his Judaism any more than Raven and Charles were particularly observant in their Christianity, but they did appreciate the trappings, whether it was gelt and latkes or turkey and trees, and Christmas... well it was actually their _third_ Christmas together - if one counted the disasterous first attempt back when Charles was still lin high school - so he had every intention of convincing himself not to freak out long enough to ask the most important man in his life the most important question in his life.

"Stop freaking out, Erik, jeez. Only a few more hours."

Erik nearly threw up dinner - which would have probably lead to a freaked out trip to the ER by a panicky Charles, but the two of them finally managed to break away from Tony and Raven - actually contributing by 'no, really, we're going to go watch the Dr. Who Christmas Special, ta!' - and finally he managed to get Charles into one of the studies, their favorite, the one where they played chess when they weren't down in the city.

"I know it's not your holiday, Erik, but dinner was lovely. You and Raven did a wonderful job." Charles was apparently completely uninterested in chess, however, and the two of them ended up making out on the couch like teenagers even though Erik's back _definitely_ wasn't up for it and Charles was - barely - starting to slow down at twenty five.

"Charles..." It came out like more of a moan than a name, but the two of them finally broke away and Charles snuggled close, legs tangling together as Charles wrapped his arms tight around Erik. "I owe you a present."

"I thought that was what sexy-Hanukkah was for..." Erik had certainly enjoyed the occasion, but...

"This is more of a sequel to sexy-Hanukkah." He remembered, all those years ago, how he'd promised Charles Hanukkah and 'next year' and everything that he'd been an ass to throw away, but he would never, ever, throw away another minute that he could spend with Charles.

Erik managed to fish the ring out of his pocket without Charles noticing, tucked away without a box to avoid over-brilliant professors who were too clever and perceptive. He balanced it on his knuckle and then slipped out of Charles' grasp so he could get down on one knee and give Charles his best nervous-hopeful look.

"Charles, would you do me the honor of marrying me, growing old with me, and playing chess in the park, complaining about students and arguing politics and just... being with me?"

He'd sort of expected 'yes', he didn't expect to be pounced on and pinned to the floor while Charles kissed the hell out of him.

The ring ended up... somewhere, Erik wasn't entirely certain because he got distracted by Charles crawling around on his hands and knees looking for it, and there may have been a blowjob or two involved before they finally found the ring under the chess board.

Erik ended up on his back, staring up at the ceiling, while Charles was admiring the ring - it was made out of meteorite metal, because why be traditional.

"Oh God."

Erik's heart fluttered when he heard Charles say that, because it was not a good sound. "What? Charles, love..."

"I just remembered the toast that Tony gave at my last wedding..."

He just rucked up Charles' shirt and kissed his stomach. "We can elope."


End file.
